Hungry Ghost Cafe to Open Next Month

A new café is coming to Flatbush Avenue.

The owner of is opening a second coffee shop at the corner of Flatbush and Sixth Avenue, but the new spot, called “Hungry Ghost” will be significantly larger and have a much more extensive menu.

“At Prospect Perk, it’s intimate, we have regular customers who come in all day long,” said owner Murat Uyaroglu. But with only a few seats at the Sterling Place café, Uyaroglu wanted to offer his customers a larger space where people could hang out longer.

Uyaroglu hopes to open the new cafe the second week of April. 

Hungry Ghost will soon host community events, such as comedy and trivia nights, said Uyaroglu, and eventually he hopes to serve wine and beer.

To start, the 30-seat restaurant will offer a full lunch menu of soups, sandwiches, salads, and sides using artisanal and local ingredients when possible. 

There will also be a selection of vegan offerings, something Uyaroglu says is a must. “You’ve got to have a vegan option, there are so many vegans in Park Slope, Prospect Heights, anywhere you go. It would be like asking me not to have tea with the coffee,” he said.

At his new spot, Uyaroglu will serve Stumptown Coffee, a departure from Prospect Perk, which serves Equal Exchange. “With the cafes being in such close proximity, I want to do something different here,” Uyaroglu said.

As for the dessert offerings, Uyaroglu has brought in chef Pete Solomita of Little Buddy Biscuit Company, who will bake on the premises such offerings as molasses spice cookies with chunks of crystallized ginger, zucchini walnut muffins, and cheddar and black pepper biscuits.  

The name of the café came about somewhat by accident. A few years ago a friend of his confused the name of a diner called “Friendly Toast," calling it “Hungry Ghost.”

“We thought it was funny but I mentioned that it would be a great name for the new cafe. Since then it was always in my mind,” Uyaroglu said. He said he’s since found out that the name has several meanings, including “beings who are driven by intense emotional needs in an animalistic way.” But, he said, “We don’t associate with any of those meanings. It’s just a good and catchy name and whatever it might mean to people, that is it.”

Uyaroglu, who moved to the United States from Turkey when he was 22, has owned Prospect Perk since 2006.

The husband and father of a 3-year-old son says he hopes to perhaps open more cafes in the future, because it’s an industry he’s fallen for. There’s something about brewing that first pot of coffee early in the morning as the first customers are coming in that gives him a lift every day.

“It’s an instinct—you just love it,” he said. “It’s something I’m meant to do."